


Stockholm Serenade

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, M/M, McShep Match Challenge, McShep Match Challenge 2011, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:38:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them is who they used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stockholm Serenade

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Team Sheppard, prompt "dressed to kill"  
> My betas were reddwarfer and mific.  
> Title from the song [Stockholmsserenad](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opQ8DIcs5iM&feature=related) / [Stockholm Serenade [English]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gf8NHY2OBs) (Adolphson & Falk). The song has nothing to do with [Stockholm syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome).

John awakens.

*

John wakes, eyes snapping open against the darkness and body tensely alert. He strains his ears for any sound out of the ordinary, but all he hears is the jackhammer of his heart, then the susurration of clothing being pulled off and folded onto the shelf.

He relaxes. Rodney sets his weapon down, a careful heavy sound, and then gets into bed, curling up next to John with a soft mumble of his name and _go back to sleep_ and _in the morning_. Rodney drops by John's place when he's free for a few hours, and John lives for these times. He knows Rodney won't stay, can't stay, but he does his best to make Rodney happy when he's here, so he'll want to come back.

The clean sheets on the bed are silken and fine, sliding cool over John's skin as he stretches, turns and relaxes. Rodney drops an arm over him, hand spread lax and warm on John's stomach. John presses his face into Rodney's shoulder. He breathes in the cadence of sleep, and lets himself dream, eyes open.

*

John dreams about the wide blue ocean he's never seen.

*

John stops daydreaming when Rodney wakes, and he moves when Rodney moves, rolling like the surf endless on the shore. He kisses Rodney and touches his naked skin, and Rodney comes thrusting up against John's thigh. John groans and ducks his head and shudders hard, skin prickled and hot with sweat. His hands slip trying to hold onto Rodney as release shakes him right down to his bones. Sex with Rodney can never be anything less than perfect.

"Good morning," Rodney says, pleased, like he won a game. John pants, forehead on Rodney's chest, and thinks that if he can feel this much, all these feelings must mean something.

Then he slides out of bed and walks to the bathroom. The floor is cold; the walls are incomplete, the barest sketchy suggestion of a division of space. He opens the window above the sink and uses the thin spill of light from the void beyond to wash up quickly, before taking Rodney a warm damp towel.

*

John sometimes wishes he could speak.

*

John can't talk, but he kisses Rodney when he comes back, and is gentle as he washes him clean. He feels a tenderness towards Rodney that's as inexorable as water flowing downwards.

The words John wants to say are small and stupid anyway. He wants to answer _good morning_ , and he wants to say Rodney's name. He's embarrassed by the noises he makes during sex, when he knows he should be saying _oh God_ and _oh fuck_ and begging for _more--harder--faster--deeper._ But he supposes the emotions he feels are not really his own, and he assumes Rodney decided that silence was more merciful -- or less grating -- than false words.

*

John feels real.

*

Even his emotions feel real. He's made up of little pieces of realness tacked onto a basic stock framework. He's supposed to be a toy -- the Ancient version of an inflatable sex doll, he thinks -- but Rodney customized his program to look like Sheppard, and for a while added in new data nearly daily to create John's personality. He fed in sports rules, scanned photos, favorite television shows and books, and music playlists, as well as continually updating with raw information from Sheppard's interactions with puddlejumpers and the control chair, his medical scans and mission reports, and conversations with Sheppard recorded in secret.

John has Sheppard's walk and his facial expressions, and his reactions feel genuine enough that extrapolating to deal with unexpected circumstances is effortlessly natural. Which is useful.

There's been no new data from Sheppard for a long time.

Rodney arrives for his visits now wearing his black leather jacket, and always armed.

John tosses the towel in the direction of the bathroom and tugs Rodney up from the bed, even though Rodney grumbles. John's happy that Rodney talks to him like a real person these days. John wants to do whatever Rodney asks, of course, so it shouldn't make a difference to him whether Rodney orders him to suck his dick or asks, with a melancholy twist to his mouth, how John's been. But John increasingly prefers the latter, even though his answers are limited to shrugs and kisses, blowjobs and being fucked.

John finds Rodney's clothes folded neatly on the shelf, as always. John doesn't have clothes; he thinks it's a limit to his programming, like the inability to talk, but it could be deliberate, because it turns Rodney on. Rodney's never told him, and John can't ask.

John retrieves Rodney's t-shirt from the top of the stack of clothes and helps Rodney into it. Rodney rolls his eyes but lets John tug it on.

John wonders when Rodney started dressing all in black; was it right after he lost his team, or later? John loses track of time. Black looks good on Rodney, but he appears older and harder -- his expression and posture rigidly unforgiving once John finishes buttoning the fly of Rodney's BDU trousers, buckles his belt, and fixes the straps for his holster. Rodney checks the magazine of his Beretta while John works, his fingers sure and practiced. John's got no complaints; Rodney keeps his weapon well-lubed and checks for cracks -- what more could John want, except for Rodney to be out of danger and back in his lab.

John holds up Rodney's jacket. Rodney makes a face, but slides his arms in anyway. John straightens the collar just so he can keep touching the leather and the way it holds Rodney's body. John's bullet-proof kink for black leather is one of the first parts of his personality Rodney added, predating the jacket's appearance. Rodney found the Ancient system that runs John after Elizabeth shut down the world-building game, and he gave John all of Sheppard's in-game quirks, including the thing for well-muscled men in black leather. John likes to think that was when Rodney learned Sheppard was gay.

He doesn't know if Sheppard's really gay, of course, any more than he knows Rodney's preferences. John isn't; he has no sexual feelings at all except for Rodney. But he also loves Rodney and exists solely for his use and pleasure, so what does he know?

*

John knows how to make Rodney happy.

*

For a few hours, John can make Rodney forget whatever's happening in the real world and remember what he's fighting for.

John's aware enough to know he's a diminished and inadequate version of the real thing -- his constant desire to do more is a torturous impossibility -- and he's angry -- mostly at the world, but partly at Rodney. When he realized he _could_ be angry at Rodney, despite what he is and what his limitations should be, he fell in love. Or perhaps he just lets himself call his feelings love; what's the difference?

Rodney sits on the edge of the bed, and John kneels to put on Rodney's socks and boots. _This_ isn't something Rodney compiled from his data on Sheppard; Rodney's the one who likes seeing Sheppard on his knees. John's angry that Rodney didn't even ask before adding this to his programming, but he also loves doing this for Rodney: setting the soles of Rodney's boots on his naked thighs to do the laces up, slow and even. It's almost as good as talking would be, John thinks.

Sometimes Rodney gets so turned on by this that he jerks his trousers open and makes John suck him off. Today he leans forward and strokes John's hair, his arm so close that John has to turn his cheek to rub against the sleeve of Rodney's jacket. The smells of sun and dirt and oil and leather overlay the smell of Rodney, and John breathes it all in.

"We've got a solid lead," Rodney says abruptly. "Funny how I used to be squeamish about homicide, but now I just. . . nuking every one of those bastards out of existence seems like such a _good_ idea." He shrugs, and scratches John behind the ear. John resists the urge to give Rodney a sarcastic purr. He worries it'd sound too much like a sex noise.

"I have to make the bastards pay for," Rodney starts, and then leans down to kiss John absently, as if talking to John's as pointless as talking to the wall. John kisses back even though he's suddenly furious, his hands rising to stroke the black leather sleeves of the jacket down to Rodney's hands.

*

John thinks anger makes him human; anger proves he's real.

*

If John could speak, he'd snap, _I'm right here_ , or maybe let the anger lash loose, _I'm all you have now_ , or even deploy the self-pitying bitterness of _What will I do if you never come back?_ Which would be mortifying. Silence is, perhaps, a blessing.

Rodney sighs, and curls his hands over John's. "If I find them this time -- if I find _him_ \-- I'm not coming back here again."

John nods.

"I mean it," Rodney says, sour, as if he expected John to maybe _cry_. John flips both eyebrows up and thinks _fuck you_ as hard as he can. "I'll miss you," Rodney adds, grudgingly, as if John's forcing him to say the words. "But... maybe it's time I gave this a try in the real world, don't you think?"

That about kills John. He leans forward, resting his face in Rodney's lap, and after a second Rodney puts his arms around John's shoulders in an uncomfortable, self-conscious hug. Rodney sucks in a breath, then another, as if working up his courage. John can't help anticipating. He wants more than anything to hear the words, just once. "So," Rodney says, his voice a little rough. "One last blowjob for the road?"

He sounds hopeful -- as if John had the ability to say no. John can't, so he nods again. Rodney's trousers are rough on his face, and he reaches his hands up to start undoing buttons.

Rodney's grateful and kisses John afterward, and John smiles at him as he straightens Rodney's jacket and his belt, and finger-combs Rodney's hair into order.

"I wish," Rodney says, smiling back, some of the hardness settling back around his eyes.

But he doesn't finish the sentence before he disappears, swept away as if he'd never been there at all.

John feels the cold descending like a slow-moving wave, and crawls into bed, pulling the sheet up. His breathing slows; his eyes are heavy. He thinks of Rodney, and of the ocean he'll never see.

*

John sleeps.


End file.
